East Africa Economic Report

Tanzanian President Jakaya Kikwete TANZANIA IS GEARING  to open up and also link itself with the world for business. A string of road projects prove this point. By the end of February reported Africa development bank, www.AfDB.org , the country boasted of 15 road upgrade projects totalling 1371kilometers. The projects said the bank, are at various stages of completion. A majority are  more than 50 per cent complete.  This underscores the seriousness with which Tanzania is taking road construction. Just ten years ago, the country could hardly count four kilometres of tarmac road per 1000 km 2 .   That number has now risen to 6.7 km per 1000km 2 and is slated to reach 8.9 km by 2016. This will ease economic activity both within the country and across its borders. The projects are jointly  funded by the government and  donors. The largest financiers are the African development bank and JICA who, in the financial year 2010/11 contributed ...

Pix. Vision2030 Secretariat THEY WERE CONCEIVED AND  designed as resort cities, -sites meant to enhance Kenya’s tourism by extending the menu of products and destinations.  They are rich in tourism attractions. However, recent developments point to growth of mega cities where tourism will play a second fiddle to other economic activities. In a bid to stem migration into the already congested cities and also to enhance and diversify tourism sector, Kenya will build several resort cities in the next couple of years. According to Kenya’s development blue print, vision 2030, the cities should be in place by 2030. The cities will be located in Lamu,Kilifi and Kwale counties at the Coast and Isiolo and Turkana counties up country. Conceptual designs of Isiolo and  Turkana Resort Cities:  mega cities waiting to happen According to the web encyclopedia, Wikipedia www.wikipedia.org , a resort city is a city where  tourism  or vacationing is a primary...

Investing in Roads, housing and Water and  electricity supplies among others  would  benefit every one     COMMENTS IN RESPONSE to  my article  http://eaers.blogspot.com/2012/04/oil-and-gas-wealth-in-east-africa-boon.html  or comments on the subject matter is positive that well managed, oil  and gas windfall can  boost development in east Africa . Many have suggested ways in which to turn the windfalls into a boon for the region. here is a synthesis of their views One of the commentators, the President of the Africa Development Bank, AfDB, Donald Kaberuka is poignant.  He advised east Africa to avoid increasing recurrent expenditure and instead use the windfall on development expenditure. Mr. Kaberuka was speaking in an interview with the wire service, Reuters www.reuters.com . He argued that increasing recurrent expenditure, especially through sharp increases of public sector salaries will lead to high inflation and e...

An offshore rig: drwaing out the family jewels in Tanzania SINCE CRUDE OIL WAS discovered in Uganda in 2006, the school of pessimists in east Africa has grown by leaps and jumps. This school pre-supposes that the discovery of Oil in east Africa will be a bane “a curse” as they put it. Consequently, the pessimists opine, they have to set up watchdogs to ensure that east Africa does not slide into anarchy due to the discovery of oil. As the discovery of oil and natural gas are becoming common place in the region, we expect more of the “prophets of doom” to come on stream. Mine is not to discuss the merits or otherwise of this school. Mine is to discuss the conditions on the ground in the region and whether they breed the seeds for future chaos or not. My thesis is: Oil and natural gas finds are a boon for the region and also the world. It is this paper’s thesis that the conditions on the ground in east Africa favour a boon from oil rather than a bane. The Political, econ...